Toyota BEATS Honda in India; Takes 5th place

After Tata Motors edged out Honda from 4th place, in India, it’s now Toyota’s turn to push the Japanese automaker further down, on the list. In terms of April 2018 sales, Toyota has now overtaken Honda, to take the fifth place in India’s car market. Toyota sold 13,037 cars last month, registering a modest 5.64 % increase in sales. Honda’s sales, on the other hand, plummeted to 9,143 units, a steep drop of 36 %. While Toyota’s strong numbers were helped by its latest launch, the Yaris C-Segment sedan, Honda’s decline can be attributed to the automaker going slow on the Amaze compact sedan dispatches as an all-new model will arrive soon.

N. Raja, the deputy managing director at Toyota Kirloskar Motors said,

This month was quite eventful for us with the bookings opening for the most awaited product Toyota Yaris. Yaris is loaded with first in segment features and offers great value proposition in terms of best in segment quality, comfort safety and performance.

Rajesh Goel, the newly appointed senior vice president and director for sales and marketing at Honda Cars India said,

HCIL sales in April are as per plan. We are preparing for the launch of all-new Amaze this month and did not have stocks of outgoing Amaze. Besides, City and WR-V which were launched last year had witnessed new model sales spurt around this time.

If the all-new Honda Amaze delivers, and sells at least 5,000 units each month, Honda is likely to take back the lead from Toyota in the coming months. Toyota will be hoping that the Yaris C-Segment sedan helps it retain 5th place, on the list. The Amaze has a better chance in garnering higher sales volumes, compared to the Yaris, considering the former is a much cheaper car. It’ll be an interesting few months for both Japanese automakers in the hugely competitive Indian market. May the best horse win.

Via ETAuto